University of Virginia Library

Fifteenth Annual Report On Historical Collections,
University of Virginia Library,
For the Year 1944-45

TO understand the pursuit of collecting historical materials,
both manuscripts and imprints, four parties must be
considered. They may regard their activities, under varying
circumstances, as hard-headed business or a fascinating game.
Certain parties may be intense rivals at one time, or loyal partners
at another. Self satisfaction and altruism are often motivating
forces that work hand in hand because, whatever the immediate
gain or advantage, there is an ultimate cultural objective
that cannot honestly be gainsaid. In this perennial pursuit is there
a winner? And if so, are the cards stacked in anyone's favor?

Of these four parties, the first is the individual or family whose
books and papers have been inherited and perhaps added to by successive
generations, but not purposefully "collected" in the usual
sense of the term; instead, the manuscripts were "created" by the
family and the books acquired more or less incidentally year after
year. Such collections represent a primary source of supply of
historical materials and the owner is usually a passive party in our
game up to a certain point.[1] The second party is the private collector
who, however he may have begun his acquisitions, usually
develops some particular interest—historical, biographical, literary,
or bibliographical—with refinements to suit his taste. If he
has plentiful funds at his disposal and buys wisely, he may build
up a notable library that will become recognized for its specialty.
Numerous collections of the sort, it is true, have been amassed at
relatively small cost, but private collecting of real significance
has become steadily more expensive, and the appetite for
rarities, once it is whetted, is not easily satisfied. The third party is
an important factor in encouraging this craving, for he is the
dealer in books and manuscripts and it is his business to stimulate
the market. As middleman he has transactions with the original

owner or inheritor of coveted treasures, with the private collector,
and with the fourth party in the game, the research library.

There is an elemental human trait expressed in all collecting
activity, whether it be of buttons or blotters, of French coins or
first editions. Man's acquisitiveness is asserted in innumerable
ways and the joy of possession breeds the desire to add to what
he has already acquired. The origin of one's particular interest
in collecting may be entirely obscure or it may be readily explained;
but if it involves the kind of objects that have enduring value
and if their potential worth as a group is appreciated by the collector,
he is not likely to abandon his pursuit as a passing fancy.
He finds himself devoting increasing attention to the quest.
Thoughtful consideration of its possibilities and varied experience
in the game develop his sense of discrimination. Intelligent selection
implies an understandng of both relative and absolute values
in a field where for most items the competitive market functions
in the usual fashion. For certain rarities, however, the intensity
of restricted demand is as unpredictable as the highly limited
source of supply. The inclination to seek the unusual and the
unique evolves naturally from this process of selection. Yet it
should be noted that such items are of most significance in relation
to others within a definite frame of reference, and the intelligent
collector develops more and more consciously a plan of
acquisition striving for unity and completeness. If the game has
involved some work, it is still most probably an avocation. As an
end in itself, it has served a good purpose for the individual. Is
this sufficient unto the day and the morrow?

Let us consider first the private collector of books, his purpose,
and what we are justified in expecting from him. His is
a highly individualistic pursuit. If it is primarily a personal matter,
the question may be asked why his private business or pleasure
should concern anyone outside his own circle of friends and acquaintances.
That it does so is of the very nature of the game;
indeed, in many instances this interest from without is given encouragement
by the collector himself. When the joy of possessing
books becomes something more than a hobby and he sets a new
goal for his ambition in terms of completeness or rarity, he seeks
the advice of other persons to further his efforts. As his library
develops into a collection of some significance, it becomes more

widely known and may eventually be recognized as a cultural
factor in the world of books and scholarship.

The association of valuable private libraries with men of
wealth has tended to overemphasize capacity to pay as the primary
factor in explaining their evolution. There are nouveaux
riches, it is true, who purchase assortments of books at a good
round sum on the assumption that the "gentleman's library"
makes the gentleman. This attribute of gentility is so falsely and
yet so firmly fixed that some custodians of books, with only
superficial knowledge about them, enjoy the title of librarian for
its respectability. But the book is greater than the man, and there
are few collectors who, once they become immersed in the game,
do not take it seriously, in spite of accidental or indifferent beginnings.
The genuine collector is a bibliophile. He may be a blind
lover at times, but experience develops his critical faculty in determining
what he wants and what it is worth to him. Whether
his means be abundant or meager, the price he pays is not
necessarily the measure of his passion nor at the same time a
refutation of his sense of relative values. And these values cannot
be expressed wholly in monetary terms.

The bibliophile who exercises his critical sense becomes a
connoisseur and improves his library accordingly. Although he
may succumb to bibliomania at the same time, this enjoyable
affliction tends to sharpen his wits even as it drives him on to
gratify his craving. When the connoisseur has gradually assembled
an important collection and begins to ask what use he can
make of it beyond the personal pleasure of possession and appreciation
of the merit of certain individual volumes, he finds himself
on common ground with the scholar. Insofar as book collecting
is an expensive pursuit, few scholars can afford to become
great private collectors; but whether their own libraries be extensive
or limited, most men of learning are concerned chiefly with
the creative work made possible by research in such collections.
Quite naturally the scholar is inclined to turn first to the library
of the research institution for his material, but he has too frequently
neglected to seek help from the private collector. The
latter likewise needs the expert advice of the scholar. Indeed, the
connoisseur may be a potential scholar himself. Even though he
goes no further than the field of bibliography in relation to his

own library, he can give his earlier efforts new meaning in terms
of cultural values.[2]

The bibliophile of years ago acquired books chiefly, if not
exclusively, because he enjoyed reading and re-reading them.
They were the classics of his own country and of others in the
ancient and modern world, and such other works as appealed to
his peculiar interests. Their contents became a part of him; he
cherished them for reading and only secondarily for consulting or
taking account of their physical qualities. However, the activity of
scholars in uncovering the past and the infiltration of historical
consciousness into the minds of intelligent laymen inevitably
bring about new interests and broadened standards of value in the
world of books. Specialization in collecting follows new courses
hitherto neglected or unknown. These are a reflection of discoveries
or conclusions in research which direct attention to printed
materials now highly appreciated for the first time. A specialized
interest in collecting may develop from a shift of emphasis in
historical writing and interpretation or even from notable current
events which hark back to forgotten sources of the distant
or recent past. The works of contemporary literary figures, for
example, may arouse interest in writings with the same motif in
an earlier period. The quest for books, like all other human occupations
and diversions, is susceptible to fads, in imitation or
emulation of a new subject or "point" emphasized by an influential
collector. Some of these fashions are by-products of the general
influences mentioned above, while others can be explained only as
expressions of personal whims and mental quirks.

Although some private collectors may be criticized for their
superficial knowledge of the contents of volumes they have acquired,
the intelligent bookman has a lively interest in something
more than the contents. Typography, imprint, sequence of material,
binding—the technical and artistic features of the book—
require some consideration, if only because they have a bearing
upon the price. It is not the pecuniary factor, however, that is of
primary importance but rather a sufficient understanding of
printing and bookmaking to appreciate what distinguishes the

fine or unusual volume from the mediocre or run-of-the-mine. To
do so depends upon some knowledge of the history of printing, a
field which has been studied intensively as well as extensively
during the past century. Private collectors provided most of the
early incentive for this study with the material they had in their
own libraries. The printer's name, place and date of imprint, and
typographical details took on new meaning. Notable and representative
examples of the evolution of printing from the period of incunabula
to recent times have become great desiderata among
certain collectors, some of whom proceeded to specialize in the
choice imprints of a given printer or region or historical period.
In the realm of books, printing and its allied arts may be designated
as the universal subject, with innumerable ramifications in
its influence upon the scholar, the collector, the printer and publisher,
and the general public.

There is a strong element of nationalism subconsciously expressed
in much of the book collecting along historical lines. For
whatever points they may be highly valued, books concerning
great political and military events, statesmen and soldiers, are
always in demand by their compatriots; only to a limited degree
is this true in the case of belles lettres and writings in other fields.
The growth of interest in Americana and the steadily broadening
scope of that interest well illustrate this point. The rise of nationalism
in the United States during the second quarter of the nineteenth
century was accompanied by the first attempt to write
the history of the young country from colonial days, and to preserve
some of the early sources of more than local significance.
The increase in national consciousness during the era of economic
expansion after the Civil War brought forth a great tide of historical
activity, evidenced in part by efforts of numerous individuals
to collect Americana, at times with heated rivalry, to
take stock of what was accessible, and to compile the data in
useful form for reference purposes.[3] Interest in the printed
sources of state and local history ran parallel to this movement.
Thus the way was partially prepared for the more critical assessment
and acquisition of American imprints in the twentieth
century.

The activities of the private collector are to a considerable
degree a measure of economic and social forces as well as of intellectual
influences in a nation or region during any given period.
The historian wants to know, in terms of individuals and classes,
who assembled libraries, of what character, and for what purpose;
what use the owner made of them or allowed other persons to
make; and how the books influenced the collector. As one writer on
the subject has observed, "We recognize two varieties of collector
from all time: the one who confers his name on a library,
and the other whose library confers a name on him."[4] In the
latter instance that name is conferred not only because he has
built up a collection of cultural significance but more so because
he has given others access to it in order to increase the world's
knowledge. To carry out this purpose has come to be regarded as
a social responsibility almost more than a personal benefaction.
The collector's desire to perpetuate his achievement is easily
understandable and not unusual. When he gives his library to an
appropriate research institution, he accomplishes this end most
effectively, for the end thereby becomes a new beginning. And if
it is not within his power to pass on his library intact to posterity,
its dissolution and reversion to the market in lots or individual
items provide pleasure anew for another generation of collectors.

He who acquires books always with the idea of unity of the
collection in mind develops the greatest library, whatever his
principal and collateral interests may be. Books attain their
maximum significance in relation to one another and a tome exceptionally
rare is no exception to this general rule. These points
are fundamental, perhaps not too obvious to warrant emphasis,
and they are applicable to the field of manuscripts as well as to
imprints. For the problems of intelligent collecting in these two
fields are similar in some respects, though very different in others.

The connoisseur-collector gives priority to manuscripts written
by famous men or associated directly with historic events. The
holograph which meets both of these conditions delights him
most. He is especially attracted by the personal element conveyed
in the letter or document handwritten, dated, and signed. The
scarcity of the autograph of a less distinguished person may provide

at times the chief incentive to the collector in striving to
reach his peculiar objective. His specialized interest is of such a
nature that he usually acquires manuscripts individually rather
than in organically related groups; hence the product of his
endeavor has an artificial character about it that the scholar deplores
on several counts.

The historian in his study of men and events also seeks certain
manuscript records of special value, but they are important
to him not as segregated rarities but in relation to innumerable
other documents that have a bearing upon his research problem. A
body of papers examined in their original order of arrangement
may reveal more than the sum total of the individual items rearranged
or divorced from one another. When their organic unity
is destroyed the question of provenance is difficult, if not impossible,
to determine. Unlike printed books, each manuscript, with
few exceptions, is the only original and can seldom be replaced or
restored to the proper location where it has the greatest historical
value. Thus it is evident that while the private collector saves
many manuscripts from destruction on the one hand, the nature
of his selection often destroys some of their intangible worth on
the other. This contradictory state of affairs is best illustrated by
the most popular brand of collecting—autographs. A recent writer
on the subject of autographs urges that collectors give due attention
to unity and content of material because as custodians of historic
treasures they have an obligation to posterity. This advice
is all to the good as an effort to improve the quality of such collections
and make them less fragmentary. He observes, however,
that "the radical, the extreme always command attention,"[5]
which is something less than the historian asks for in his research
in manuscripts. Autograph collecting like book collecting has its
fads and amusing bypaths, as shown in the zeal for complete sets
of autographs of the signers of the Declaration of Independence—
a fashion that prevailed during most of the nineteenth century.[6]
Those sets which have remained intact contain some letters of

great historical value, but the sets themselves are little more than
curiosities today. It was a fashion which incidentally gave the
Georgia worthy, Button Gwinnett, some posthumous national repute
by reason of his excessively rare signature.

To the private collector of manuscripts let us give sufficient
credit where credit is due for what he has preserved within the
limits of his individual interest and intelligence. What has been
said above concerning the objectives of the most notable collectors
of printed works likewise applies in the manuscript field and
these collectors are often the same persons. In assembling their
materials they develop a program embracing a subject or period
broader than the great men and events pertaining thereto; and
their chief purpose, like that of Henry E. Huntington or Tracy W.
McGregor, has been to make the records accessible for productive
scholarship and cultural advancement.

The dealer in books and manuscripts has been designated as
the third party in the game of collecting. He is both blessed and
cursed for what he does and for what he does not. Although
profit-making may not be his sole aim, he is a business man and
surely he cannot remain in business if he operates "in the red."
He will point out that the risks are great, the supply is uncertain,
a large portion of the demand is variable, and the margin of profits
depends upon a rapid turn-over of his inventory, some of which
never actually becomes stock on hand. In performing his function
(and service) as middleman he is often an object of attack, for
someone is perennially advocating elimination of the middleman
from our capitalistic society. The dealer is an elusive fellow at
times, not found in his store regularly from 9 A. M. to 5 P. M. but
turning up elsewhere as confidential agent, or advising a good
customer on some forthcoming opportunity for purchase, or bibulously
talking shop with curators of books and manuscripts behind
the scenes of historical conventions. His best business is
highly individualized. His stock-in-trade involves a mastery of
detail. Even the most intelligent dealer needs many years' experience
to establish his reputation not only as a business man
but, like the private collector, as a connoisseur. In fact, some
dealers are such bibliophiles that they succumb to collecting "for
keeps" themselves. This mingling of commercial and cultural interests,

of vocation and avocation, is also revealed in the bibliographical
excellence of certain dealers' printed catalogues.

In establishing and maintaining contacts with the sources of
supply of books and manuscripts the dealer provides two services
at a price. He saves great quantities of valuable material from
destruction by the owners who in many instances are unaware of
any other means of disposal, and he makes this material available
on the market for buyers whose demands cannot be conveniently
met otherwise. With regard to the service performed by preservation
at the source, he may select for purchase only those items he
judges to be marketable, whereas the representative of a research
library would make a broader choice or take the collection as a
whole; but it must be remembered that the dealer is engaged in a
legitimate business and that institutions have never found a way
of covering the field directly. Some of them use the dealer as agent
in special cases, thereby acknowledging his usefulness. The private
collector might prefer also to satisfy his desires without an
intermediary, but generally he finds it necessary as a practical
matter to rely on the dealer.

There is nothing standardized about the prices of rare books
and manuscripts. Figures are seldom quoted before sale because
they are determined mostly by private bargaining or by competitive
buying. Prices are announced in some printed catalogues, and
records of what has been paid at auction are available in such
compilations as American Book Prices Current. These serve as a
convenient guide to estimated values of identical or comparable
items offered for sale, but the amount offered or agreed to by the
collector for a particular book or manuscript depends largely upon
how much he is willing to pay in order to satisfy his desire.
Here the dealer's knowledge of men and books and his experience
with the peculiarities of the trade stand him in good stead
in setting his price or in encouraging competitive bidding. The
trend from broad generalized buying to specialized selection by
his better customers works to the dealer's advantage in augmenting
the value of the rarer materials. Except in times of economic
depression this portion of the market is usually a dealer's market
and the brisk trade he enjoys is an incentive to ferret out
new sources of supply.

In his relations with those persons who seek a market for their
books and papers, the dealer finds that few such owners understand
the highly individualized nature of the demand among his
customers and its effect on the ultimate sale price. Generally he
has the advantage of knowing more about the market than the
owner, who for this very reason, may be suspicious of the price
offered. He may feel that his situation smacks too much of "Let
the seller beware," as the dealer seeks to widen his anticipated
margin of profit. On the other hand, the dealer may be in the
position of "Caveat emptor." He must be on guard against buying
forgeries or facsimiles in disguise or documents from official files
which the state can claim without cost, if they appear on the
market. The reputable and experienced dealer, however, is not
easily fooled. Nor does he desire that the customers to whom he
sells should have to be mindful of the old "Caveat emptor" rule
of trade. The best merchants of books and manuscripts, cherishing
their reputation for fair dealing and their association with private
collectors and cultural institutions, enjoy the intellectual stimulus
derived from their business. Their returns are by no means measured
exclusively in dollars and cents.

The chief complaint of scholars and curators against the dealer
is his practice of breaking up organic collections of manuscripts
and offering them for sale piecemeal. The research value of such
a body of papers is greater than the sum of its parts. When they
are scattered, scholarship has suffered a loss which can never quite
be recovered. The dealer may argue that, having acquired such a
collection, he must make his profit, or that only after having failed
to find a buyer for the whole has he proceeded to sell it in parts.
It is true that he has saved something, even so—perhaps some
documents of great historical significance, which might never
have come to light except through his hands. He may also realize
a greater total profit by disposing of them individually or in lots
than by selling a collection intact. How much social or cultural
obligation ought he feel as a counterbalance to the justifiable
desire for economic gain? The research library is especially interested
in acquiring collections intact, and accomplishes this end
most effectually by direct contact with the owner. The dealer
who runs into competition with an institution for favorable consideration
by the owner of manuscripts can afford to make some

concessions, or under certain circumstances withdraw from the
scene, for the benefit of scholarship when the library is one of
good repute in business matters as well as in intellectual standing.
For who can discriminate more keenly among research institutions
than the wise dealer? Likewise when he is called in as agent
by the owner, it is within the bounds of propriety and cultural
responsibility to give the first refusal to such institutons. Furthermore,
they are the dealer's long-time customers who often buy
other research materials, in small or large lots, which no private
collector wants.

There is another way of meeting the objection to the break-up
of manuscript collections by the dealer, although he will challenge
it vigorously. It consists of making photographic copies of the
originals before they are scattered, so that unity and sequence of
the collection are preserved in the photographic set for its maximum
research use, regardless of the dispersion of the originals.
Although the dealer maintains that production of photographic
copies lessens the market value of the originals, it is doubtful
whether substantial proof can be presented for this contention,
especially in the case of manuscripts of unusual interest, in respect
to authorship, content, or association. It is manuscripts in
this class that always fetch top prices and spur him on in the
practice of dispersal. Further light is thrown on this issue by the
liberal policy, already widely adopted among libraries, of supplying
other institutions with microfilm copies of rare books and
manuscripts at cost. In spite of this growing practice (to some
degree, no doubt, because of it), libraries continue to boast of
originals in their possesison because of their rarity and scholars
continue to consult them because of their intrinsic research value
and appeal as originals. Perhaps the dealer is just a bit old fashioned
in his attitude.

The research library got into the game of collecting late, as
the fourth party. With some exceptions, libraries until well into
the nineteenth century tried to meet their limited needs with
more limited funds and have always been grateful recipients of
gifts that chanced to come their way. The greatest accumulations
of books and manuscripts were owned by private collectors and
scholars, who were the chief and almost sole customers of the
dealers. Amid the rapid increase in auction sales during the

decades after the Civil War most items on the market passed from
one private library to another. This was a period of some famous
sales (a prelude to more exciting opportunities in the next century),
and the first occasions arose when libraries were able to
participate to any great extent, by means of the bequests made
by George Brinley and Joseph J. Cooke for this expressed purpose
at the respective sales of their books in 1879 and 1883.[7] The
wider use for their volumes in public institutions influenced such
collectors as James Lenox and Lyman C. Draper in planning for
the disposition of their libraries; while Ferdinand J. Dreer, in
anticipating the gift of his collection of autographs to the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania, wrote that they constituted "substantial
wealth, when in the keeping of a public institution, upon
which drafts for information are always honoured at sight."[8]
This point of view became more widely held after 1900, as shown
in the increasing number of famous private libraries given to
institutions, along with funds for upkeep and expansion. Simultaneously
occurred the steadily mounting interest in research and
the need for a greater variety of basic materials. Thus research
libraries appeared in the dealer's market in ever larger numbers
as good customers.

In the days when private collectors had the run of the market
almost exclusively, the game was played with rugged individualism
in the customary spirit of the time, and untrammeled
competition paid off well to the dealer. During a long business
career he would have the opportunity of handling some choice
items twice or thrice as private libraries were broken up by the
owners or their heirs. But the growing influence of institutions in
the game has modified the conditions if not the rules somewhat
to the disadvantage of the dealer. Wider recognition of the service
of institutions to scholars and the public has resulted from
efforts of librarians to encourage the use of their materials and
from a better appreciation of the cultural benefits derived from
permanent collections administered under an enlightened policy.

Thus to some extent these libraries are in a privileged position
with respect to the competitive market. Some persons will not
bid against an institution, or at least against a particular one they
hold in great esteem; others will buy for the library which they
feel "ought to have" the material offered for sale. "Friends of the
library," an idea that has grown in favor in recent years, provides
a source of funds enabling the institution to purchase choice books
and manuscripts when prompt action is essential. Librarians have
been rugged individualists, too, and have enjoyed outwitting their
professional competitors. Many of them, however, have learned
(some slowly and reluctantly) the wisdom of cooperation so that
the sum total spent by all yields more returns at less cost. They
have gradually applied the trade association idea to their profession,
notably in improving their special collections. They are
more inclined to help one another, sometimes by abstaining from
buying what the other fellow needs most, to improve or perfect
some well known group of material.

Since a swelling stream of manuscripts and imprints is flowing
from the market into institutions to remain there forever, is the
dealer playing a hopeless losing game? It is true that some of his
most lucrative sources of supply have dried up, but it can scarcely
be denied that others replace them. New materials are always
being created and old ones rediscovered. The individual collector
of such records we shall always have with us, as long as man is
capable of this human activity. If the dealer finds it necessary to
modify his business or develop new techniques, this necessity is
common to all occupations at one time or another. However, his
field of operations is so extensive and so productive that the end
is not in sight; it is rather what he makes of it.

We may conclude that the collecting of books and manuscripts
is carried on with mixed motives that so often mingle personal
satisfaction with social gain. The private collector's acquistiveness
is often matched by that of the librarian who covets the object
in view as a personal possession rather than as a means to the
advancement of learning. The owner who wishes to sell and the
dealer who promotes the sale may be interested only in monetary
considerations. But you have to know something about the
material to buy or sell it at an advantage. In the learning it takes
on new meaning, especially in its relation to other books or documents.

Thus when the game is played or the business transacted
with this appreciation, cultural values begin to outweigh other
factors; indeed, under certain circumstances even the desire for
profit may be compromised. In this state of affairs no one is the
loser, all factors considered. If the trend in collecting is inclined
in favor of the research and educational institution, then the winnings
are shared by all.